The picture of Cass Community Social Services is coming into focus!

Spending time with Cass has helped us to see not only the tasks we are directly helping with, but also the depth and breadth of the services as well!

Several of our projects from yesterday have come to an end, and others have entered newer phases! There are also new projects coming into play, all of which are keeping us busy.

Our Cass House crew finished their work landscaping, so this team integrated with with our existing crew in Scott Building, to continue making the top floor ready for residents. Mom's Place two continued to make headway for residency as well. Both of these locations, in addition to others in the Cass network, are adapting to a change in the federal funding laws, which no longer favor transient housing. This may be a good thing in the long run, but for now, it is causing much turmoil and work for the already stretched non-profit ministries in Detroit.

Working in the corners. Much needed cleaning at Scott.

Painting the walls to bring new life to the apartments.

Some boards have outlived their usefulness.

Painting in all directions at Mom's Place Two.

Work continued at the World Building, which has only been part of Cass for a short time. Already, this has become a center for service and training! There are a number of products made here, which include the use of illegally dumped auto and truck tires, broken glass from the many shattered windows in the city, and lumber from razed homes destroyed by time or fire. These products, details to follow, help both clean up the neighborhoods and offer employment for those most in need. We continued to make this building usable for Cass' purposes by making progress on the entry stairs, painting the doors which probably haven't had attention in a decade, and moving all the record files onto the shelving begun yesterday. So far, only four floors of this eight story building are being used, but there are plans for the entire structure! We can't wait to see what the leadership of Cass comes up with.

Strong handrails for the new stairs.

A fresh coat of paint on the doors.

Files and more files!

Tomorrow, we will have more of a tour of the facilities of Cass Community Social Services, and see first hand the many ways this neighborhood is helping itself find roots and establish a community.

A Hot Day, with Rewarding Work!

Our alarms were going off by 6:00am so we could get ready, have breakfast and make the bus by 7:15am! Our crew was awake and ready to go, and the hotel did a wonderful job keeping the breakfast items stocked.

Upon arriving at Cass Community Social Services' "Scott House", we unloaded and split into our various work groups, We had 6 work teams in four buildings to start, all but one of which were in a couple square blocks. We had a crew working in the Mom's Place Two, three crews (one floating IT crew) in the Cass World Building, another crew in the Scott House, and one more working a distance away at the Cass House.

Cass Community Social Services - Mom's Place Two.

IT crew making the security systems work correctly.

Defining the landscaping project at Cass House.

Power Tools! Building some stairs to enter the World Building.

Our crew did work to clean up the basement of the World Building, as well as move shelves from the 4th floor to be set up in one of the newly cleaned out rooms. Another crew worked on the entry stairs to the World Building, which had a newly constructed ramp already in place. Several of our team worked to make the Mom's Place Two inhabitable for a reformatted housing program which is set to be in place by September 1. The IT crew enjoyed working in all manner of environments, including the air conditioned administrative office! It is possible they took their time in this part of their rounds. Our last team worked at Cass House, a home for HIV positive men. Their job was to clean up the grounds which were, except for some basic lawn mowing, completely overgrown.

This evening, we enjoyed dinner at O'Kelly's Banquets. The food and fellowship was fantastic, and Rev. Fowler shared the story of creating the social service programs we see, over the past 20 years. The story is amazing, and begs to be engaged further. We will continue to both learn about what Cass is all about, as well as do some more work to their and God's purposes, as our trip continues.

Please check out Cass Community Social Services at their web site:https://casscommunity.org/

Welcome to... Dearborn!

Welcome back to our Detroit mission page.

We met this afternoon at Kingswood United Methodist Church in Buffalo Grove, IL for lunch. We enjoyed a meal together, and had a chance to meet others traveling to Detroit for this year's Interfaith mission trip. We have people along from Hope Lutheran Church, Kingswood United Methodist Church, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, St. Mary's Parish and Temple Chai. Our team counts 49 this year, and is a rich mix of new participants and veterans. We are people who have done many mission trips, just one or two Interfaith trips, and several who have never been on a service trip before.

Lunch and mingling before the drive to Detroit.

After nourishment, it was time to load the bus! People mingled some more, took group photos, and picked their seats. Pastor Eric Schlichting went through our list to be sure everyone who was to be on the bus was indeed present! Our bus driver, Jeff, gave us the run down on our trip and accommodations for the next 6 hours, and we were on our way! Our journey was uneventful, and we enjoyed the time to get to know one another, stopping in Jackson for a great dinner before continuing to our hotel in Dearborn. Yes, we're ALMOST to Detroit, but not actually there as of tonight.

Our work team leads were meeting to go over what we had on tap for projects, and they seemed to be enjoying the challenges! Tomorrow, after a good night's sleep, we will wake to breakfast, a 7:15 bus boarding time, and details on our work. Please come back tomorrow to see what we ended up doing for the day.

Interfaith reaching out to Detroit!

Welcome back to the Northwest Suburban Interfaith Council blog page!

Drive with us to the Motor City - Detroit, Michigan!

This summer, we will be working with Cass Community Social Services (CCSS), an organization started in 2002 to work in poverty stricken areas of Detroit, providing programs for food, health, housing and jobs. In line with the housing, the are in the process of final approval to break ground for the building of 25 homes. This is where we come in!

Our team will be part of building some of this new housing, even sending a crew out a day or two early to line up jobs and ensure our group hits the ground running. The specifics are still in the works, but come here to check out the trip as the plans come along, and please consider participating on the inspiring and valuable team!

Learn more about CCSS


here: http://casscommunity.org/

To recap our past experiences, and what we bring to the table, the past two years our teams have been about 45 people, from teens to those in their 70's, men and women, skilled and apprentices. We have worked in Washington, IL to clean up farm fields, making them usable after a devastating tornado dropped a large part of the town on them. We built sheds to help those recovering from that same tornado, working in construction teams which brought out our construction and team building skills!

Our second trip was also tornado recovery, in Brookport, IL. We worked on three different sites, and five different buildings in various stages of construction! It was a privilege to watch some of our crew maneuver an end loader around our foundation site, to see the skill and near acrobatics or some of our younger crew staining rails and decks, and to admire the trade skills of those who installed water heaters or precision cut trim. Our outdoor work crews, especially, deserved special acclamation as the heat index kept climbing until it reached 110°F on our last day!

Throughout both of these trips and our time together reminiscing here at home, we enjoyed the fellowship of coming together to talk and worship in different ways. We have built solid relationships between our faith communities, and formed bonds of friendship with one another.

Peace and prayers to you, as we prepare again to be the hands and feet of God in the world.

Changed People.

Our work is done, and our drive home went well.

Pastor Eric shared a time of Christian prayer on the bus, and we once again felt the presence of God in our interfaith group. We ended the prayers by sharing peace with one another in a renewed spirit of cooperation and purpose.

Pastor Eric did a wonderful job of
sharing our common purpose under God
as seen through our Interfaith lenses.

Once settling into the drive, some of us rested, others read books, but most seemed to chat about the experiences we had. Our memories are filled with images of working in the heat, the meals we shared, and perhaps most of all, the stories of those we met. Trying to imagine what it was like for our friends Lucille or Francis as they experienced the tornado first hand will be with us for years to come.

We are now back in our homes, comfortable and cool. Our bodies can feel the effects of our work, and our hearts are touched by the lives of our new friends. Our prayer is that we don't forget what we've seen and learned, and that others will be touched by our story to join us for our next mission.

Thank you for your prayers, and please watch both here and in our congregations on news of presentations and upcoming trips.

Our Final Day, Braved in a Heat Index of 110ºF!

Welcome to our final Brookport mission trip work day offering. We went out in style, in good ole' country heat and humidity! The heat and humidity were not to deter our team, working on our projects to the end. Some of us could do without the high heat index, but the experiences of meeting people and accomplishing work made the temperatures just another part of the story.

With the high heat forecast for the day,
we made sure all work sites had plenty of
water and a plan to take regular breaks.

Our first team, at the foundation site, did an amazing job leveling and starting the joists for the senior home. The next team to work on this project will have a great and solid place to start their work, with our crack construction team making sure this home will be a well built place to live.

The foundation is ready for the building to begin.

The team working on the three Short Street homes did well moving a large number of diverse projects forward. The planning was so good that even with multiple teams working on each building, no one got hemmed in by another floor finishing group laying tile or staining front and rear decks to inhibit another team's exit. All houses have water heaters, most decks are fully stained (with the exception of the steps of the home with our last interior work group), much trim was painted, a walkway with mulch was added as landscaping, and a large number of weeds were whacked away from the foundations.

Tile Masters showing off their craft! Only a few
feet left in the front, and some grout work.

The freshly mulched walkway will offer an
attractive way to get to the back of the home.

The team working on Francis' home had some of the more interesting stories today. Lucille's description of a freight train running over her house came back to mind when thinking about Francis' experience and what her home had gone through. She was in her home during the tornado, and as we learned on previous days, neighbors lost their homes and she had lost family.

Her heart was with the others, and she thought her home had survived the winds. In fact, Francis' house was severely damaged! The walls had all shifted, and the elements were able to get in and do some major water and mold damage. In the end, after months of work, others were able to bring the house back into a structurally sound condition, leaving the finishing touches for us.

Our team made a lot of progress in painting, trimming, and landscaping the house, as well as making some key discoveries which will help her make the house more durable for years to come. In clearing some of the dirt from the foundation, we found that the home is very near the water table. This can be evidenced by the water continually bubbling to the surface along the foundation, and the numerous crayfish mud piles in the yard. Joe, our contractor, has some ideas of how to protect her home, and it is the plan to fix this now rather than later.

Much dirt was moved at Francis' home.

Painting and trimming, her home was
looking more beautiful by the hour.

Precision trimming! Each piece was
checked and fitted for a nice, clean trim.

Foundation concerns at the waterline. Even with
regular pumping, this trench along her foundation
continued to fill with groundwater.

A lesson in nature, these mounds are created
by crayfish who burrow between a couple
inches and a couple feet for their nests. These
mounds indicate that the water table is not far below.

At the end of our day, we took Lucille up on her invitation to come by any time to see her home, built by other volunteers. She is a gracious hostess, and wonderful interior decorator! Her home was a model of fashion and hospitality.

Most of our 41 person crew filed into Lucille's
home to see the work other teams have done.

Our evening ended with a dinner at Pizza Inn, a tasty buffet where we could all indulge in the foods we had been avoiding while working in the heat. We continued to get to know one another, and shared stories of faith and mission. Overall, it has been a fantastic experience, and we hope many more will join us next year. Tomorrow we join one another for a prayer breakfast before returning home to our regular work, and those we love at home.

Day Two, and a Triple Digit Heat Index!

The heat was raised! Both in the amount of work we were called to do, and the heat index which reached 104 today! We watched one another, made sure we took water breaks regularly, and worked out of the sun as much as possible.

Our team split into three groups today. One continued working on the foundation we started on Thursday, and got the poor deal of having the least shade available.

A second team worked on Francis' house, who joined us for dinner last night. They did some inside painting work, as well as some outdoor leveling of the grounds around the house. Still outside, but with some options.

Don cutting vinyl flooring where one of
the water heaters will be installed.

Tina was a caulking machine,
trimming an entire house.

Our third team (and the one with the most cameras on tap) returned to the houses on Short street. We did some work on installing both tile and vinyl flooring, caulking and trimming the walls, staining front and back decks, landscaping, and even installing two water heaters!

Our landscaping team of Donna,
Bev and Karen helped to make
the outside look welcoming.

Jan does windows,
and does them well!

Kathy and Stephanie worked toward
becoming master tile layers.

 We also had the opportunity to meet and talk with Linda, without whose hard work, the recovery effort would not be making as much progress. We found out from her that, without the work of hundreds of volunteers such as ourselves, the community would still be in significant disrepair. The three houses we are working on are the last of the displaced reconstructions from the storms. Additional building will continue, but these will be to start moving the community forward and beyond the terrible memories that day of death and destruction brought. 

Linda is the caseworker for the MPCRC who brought this
neighborhood together with resources so the lives of those
affected by the tornadoes could begin to return to normal.

We once again enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Walker Hall, celebrating Shabbat, signifying the end of our week's work, though we are would still labor on the Sabbath, Saturday. The prayers were led by members of Temple Chai, and we all prayed in appreciation of our experiences so far.

We also had the privilege of hosting Lucille and some of her friends, who prepared lunch for us each day this week. They are a wonderful and giving group of angels who though affected by the destruction of November 17, 2013, want to give back to those of us who come to help.

Our guests for dinner this Shabbat evening. Lucille, center
in the green shirt, shared her moving story of survival
as her house was destroyed by the tornado, with her in it!

Tomorrow promises to be significant both because of the work we plan to complete, and the expectation of even higher temperatures. Please continue to pray for us, the work we are doing, our safety in labor, and the community we are here to help!